The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(100)

                             “Which means to say, Hilda, that, after all, you are still a woman!”

                “A woman; oh, yes; very much a woman! Hubert, I love you; I half wish I did not.”

                “Why, darling?” I drew her to me.

                “Because—if I did not, I could send you away—so easily! As it is—I cannot let you stop—and…I cannot dismiss you.”

                “Then divide it,” I cried gaily; “do neither; come away with me!”

                “No, no; nor that, either. I will not stultify my whole past life. I will not dishonour my dear father’s memory.”

                I looked around for something to which to tether my horse. A bridle is in one’s way—when one has to discuss important business. There was really nothing about that seemed fit for the purpose. Hilda saw what I sought, and pointed mutely to a stunted bush beside a big granite boulder which rose abruptly from the dead level of the grass, affording a little shade from that sweltering sunlight. I tied my mare to the gnarled root—it was the only part big enough—and sat down by Hilda’s side, under the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. I realised at that moment the force and appropriateness of the Psalmist’s simile. The sun beat fiercely on the seeding grasses. Away on the southern horizon we could faintly perceive the floating yellow haze of the prairie fires lit by the Mashonas.

                “Then you knew I would come?” I began, as she seated herself on the burnt-up herbage, while my hand stole into hers, to nestle there naturally.

                She pressed it in return. “Oh, yes; I knew you would come,” she answered, with that strange ring of confidence in her voice. “Of course you got my letter at Cape Town?”

                “I did, Hilda—and I wondered at you more than ever as I read it. But if you knew I would come, why write to prevent me?”

                Her eyes had their mysterious far-away air. She looked out upon infinity. “Well, I wanted to do my best to turn you aside,” she said, slowly. “One must always do one’s best, even when one feels and believes it is useless. That surely is the first clause in a doctor’s or a nurse’s rubric.”



                             “But why didn’t you want me to come?” I persisted. “Why fight against your own heart? Hilda, I am sure—I know you love me.”

                Her bosom rose and fell. Her eyes dilated. “Love you?” she cried, looking away over the bushy ridges, as if afraid to trust herself. “Oh, yes, Hubert, I love you! It is not for that that I wish to avoid you. Or, rather, it is just because of that. I cannot endure to spoil your life—by a fruitless affection.”

                “Why fruitless?” I asked, leaning forward.

                She crossed her hands resignedly. “You know all by this time,” she answered. “Sebastian would tell you, of course, when you went to announce that you were leaving Nathaniel’s. He could not do otherwise; it is the outcome of his temperament—an integral part of his nature.”

                “Hilda,” I cried, “you are a witch! How could you know that? I can’t imagine.”

                She smiled her restrained, Chaldean smile. “Because I know Sebastian,” she answered, quietly. “I can read that man to the core. He is simple as a book. His composition is plain, straightforward, quite natural, uniform. There are no twists and turns in him. Once learn the key, and it discloses everything, like an open sesame. He has a gigantic intellect, a burning thirst for knowledge; one love, one hobby—science; and no moral instincts. He goes straight for his ends; and whatever comes in his way,” she dug her little heel in the brown soil, “he tramples on it as ruthlessly as a child will trample on a worm or a beetle.”